Lysistrata: Lines 980 – 1323 Summary & Analysis

Myrrhine’s putting-off of Kinesias represents the breaking of the men’s will and the victory of the women. The Commissioner’s suspicion of the Spartan herald is unfounded, obviously—Aristophanes is suggesting that, rather than be suspicious of their neighbors, the Athenians should commiserate with them (particularly when it comes to basic aspects of humanity, like sexuality).

The women’s sex strike has touched all of Greece, and the men at last recognize that basic human needs override all else. Just as personal lust has brought about political change within the play, so the play itself seeks to bring about such change through its comedy and satire.

Just as Athens and Sparta are being reconciled, so too are the men and women of the Chorus. Shallow ideologies, like the “battle of the sexes,” cannot survive when in conflict with basic human needs. Even the unlikeable Male Koryphaios is finally made into a more sympathetic character.

The Female Koryphaios very charitably gives her male counterpart an excuse for his bad behavior, so that he does not have to bear the full burden of responsibility. This is a fiction that both the man and woman accept to strengthen their relationship, just as Lysistrata is a fiction for the Greeks to accept in order to achieve peace.

This is one of the most famous comic images of the play, and with it Aristophanes also profoundly humanizes the Greek men. They are naked, needy animals more than they are glorious conquerors—bound by a common humanity more than they are divided by nationality. This image of leveling thus ultimately gestures toward the absurdity of fighting with one another.

The Male Koryphaios, who began the play by denigrating women in the vilest terms, at last recognizes Lysistrata’s excellence and the excellence of peace. Although Peace is personified as a sexually desirable girl, the play is not interested so much in lust here as it is in the civilizing, uniting power of erotic love.

Lysistrata’s comment about the Persians makes sense only if we remember that the Greco-Persian Wars took place only some twenty years before the Peloponnesian War began. In that earlier conflict, the Athenians and Spartans fought together against the Persians. Lysistrata is attempting to reunite the Greeks by demonizing a common enemy. Here it’s made clear that Lysistrata is not a universally pacifist (or feminist) play. Aristophanes doesn’t condemn war or patriarchal society in themselves—only war when it’s irrational, and only men when they’re acting foolish.

The bawdy image of Peace as territory to be negotiated over cleverly (if sexistly) joins together the ideas of sexual excitement, friendly rivalry, common goals, and new creation (see the bawdy agricultural metaphors). Quarrels do not need to be eliminated, only amicably resolved.

It is appropriate that a play all about frustrated appetite should end with a feast. The Chorus’s jokes here remind us that we’re watching a fantasy of plenty, and that if we really want jewels and wheat, so to speak, we have to enact political reform in the real world.

The unification of the Chorus resolves the play’s subplot about the fighting old men and women. The Commissioner only plays at enforcing regulations here, because he recognizes that the raucous celebration is in the spirit of Athenian law, if not in its letter.

Kinesias speaks in the Spartan dialect (which Aristophanes still gently mocks) because he has rediscovered his brotherhood with those fellow Greeks. As the women drank wine when taking their oath to fight for peace, so is wine here imagined to promote sociability and unity.

Although Aristophanes’ comedy was performed for the Athenians, he gives the Spartans pride of place and patriotic songs to sing. He was trying to cultivate among the Athenians fellow feeling with the Spartans; notice that he again brings up the Persians as a common enemy of the Greeks.

Peace and trust are fully restored only when the Peloponnesian women are restored to the Spartans. The ode to the god of wine celebrates the comic spirit and the ideals of sociability and pleasure, while the ode to Zeus and Hera celebrates the ideal of marriage (although Zeus and Hera’s marriage was far from ideal, but that’s another story).

Aristophanes honors the Spartans by giving them the last word of his comedy. This is something of a peace offering, even if it’s made with some gentle mockery and comic outlandishness. The ode’s theme is the satisfaction of basic human needs—what all reasonable and just states and policies are supposed to uphold. Though the play ends with peace and happiness, it’s also important to remember that Aristophanes’ political comedy wasn’t heeded by the higher-ups in the Greek government—the Peloponnesian War continued for several years after Lysistrata’s debut, and Athens eventually surrendered to its enemies amidst desperate circumstances. Yet despite the fact that Lysistrata may not have effected immediate political change in the way Aristophanes intended, his play endures as a brilliant, comic appeal to the basic needs and pleasures of humanity in the face of political pride, intrigue, and stubbornness.